At a quick pace he crossed the arid desert that surrounds the city, and ascended into the well-wooded and magnificent mountain ranges that rise all around it, but more especially to the westward, whither his route lay, and his spirits rose as his party spurred onward. "What pleasure there is in a gallop!" says Paul Ferroll; "the object is before one, at which to arrive quickly; the still air becomes a wind marking the swiftness of one's pace--the fleet horse is his own master, yet one's slave; the bodily employment leaves care, thought, and time behind. One feels the pleasure of danger, because there might be danger, and yet there may be none." So thought Waller, as he careered at the head of his party, with a cigar between his teeth, the which to keep alight while riding at full speed, he had previously dipped in saltpetre, a camp-fashion peculiar to India. Candahar is distant from Jellalabad two hundred and seventy British miles, and, considering the state of the whole country, the undertaking, at the head of twenty horse, was a brave and arduous one; but Waller confidently set out on his expedition, after having carefully inspected his escort of picked men, and personally examined their arms, ammunition, and saddlery, as he knew not whom they might meet, or have to encounter. By a curious coincidence, on the very day he bade adieu to his brother-officer, Audley Trevelyan, and other friends, to urge and effect a junction of the forces, a fresh and loud burst of indignation against the now-desponding Indian Executive was excited in the minds of Sale's troops by the arrival of a messenger with a startling proposal from the Governor-General, Auckland, to the effect that Jellalabad was _not_ a place to retain any longer; that a retreat was to be made from there to Peshawur; that, in effect, the whole of Afghanistan was to be--as Ackbar Khan wished it--abandoned by our forces, and that the helpless women and children, wounded and sick, at Cabul, were to be left at the mercy of irresponsible barbarians until rescued by quiet negotiations or a judicious distribution of money; and thus to have peace at any price, leaving our disgraces without remedy, our revenge unaccomplished, and our prestige destroyed--in that quarter of the world at least! Even the English women who were captives in Afghanistan knew better than this; for, amid the earnest prayers which they put up for their liberation, they ever seemed to know that it was "not to be obtained by negotiation and ransom, _but by hard fighting_," and they had more trust in the bayonets of Sale's Brigade than in all the diplomatists in London or Calcutta.